Alliant Energy Corp. (LNT), a provider of regulated energy service, Wednesday announced the appointment of John Larsen to succeed Patricia Kampling, who is retiring as Chairman and Chief Executive Officer effective July 1.

Larsen, currently President and Chief Operating Officer, was also appointed as a member of the Board of Directors effective February 13. He will become Chief Executive Officer, President and Chairman of the Board of Alliant Energy, effective July 1.

Kampling has been with Alliant Energy since 2005 and has served as Chairman and CEO since 2012.

Larsen joined the company in 1988 as an electrical engineer, and later held leadership roles in engineering, energy delivery and generation operations of the company. In 2004, he was promoted to Vice President and in 2017, he was named President. In 2018, he was named President and Chief Operating Officer of Alliant Energy and Chief Executive Officer of Alliant Energy's two utility companies.

Shares of Biogen Inc. are falling almost 28 percent in Thursday's trading after the company and Japanese drugmaker Eisai Co. said they will discontinue two late-stage trials for their experimental Alzheimer's drug, Aducanumab. The two Phase 3 trials, ENGAGE and EMERGE, are multi-center, randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled, parallel-group studies designed to evaluate Aducanumab.

The European Union on Wednesday ordered Alphabet Inc.'s Google to pay an antitrust fine of 1.49 billion euros for abusing its dominant position in the online search advertising intermediation market by preventing competition. This is the third antitrust fine by the EU against Google and it represents 1.29 percent of the tech giant's turnover in 2018.

Shares of BMW Group declined around 5 percent in German trading after the auto giant reported Wednesday weak profit in its fiscal year 2018, despite a 0.1 percent growth in Automotive revenues with higher deliveries. Looking ahead for fiscal 2019, the company expects Group profit before tax will be well below the previous year's level. BMW said it is confident of volume growth in Automotive unit.